41 Facts About Benjamin Spock

Benjamin Spock was the first pediatrician to study psychoanalysis in an effort to understand children's needs and family dynamics.

Benjamin Spock's ideas influenced several generations of parents, encouraging them to be more flexible and affectionate with their children and to treat them as individuals.

Benjamin Spock campaigned on a maximum wage, legalized abortion, and withdrawing troops from all foreign countries.

Benjamin Spock's books were criticized by conservatives for propagating permissiveness and an expectation of instant gratification, a charge that Spock denied.

Benjamin McLane Spock was born May 2,1903, in New Haven, Connecticut.

Benjamin Spock's parents were Benjamin Ives Spock, Yale graduate and long-time general counsel of the New Haven Railroad, and Mildred Louise Spock.

Benjamin Spock was one of six children, including his younger sister, environmentalist writer Marjorie Benjamin Spock.

Benjamin Spock attended Hamden Hall Country Day School, and went on to attend his father's alma maters Phillips Andover Academy and Yale University.

Benjamin Spock attended the Yale School of Medicine for two years before shifting to Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons, from which he graduated first in his class in 1929.

Jane Cheney Benjamin Spock was a civil liberties advocate and mother of two sons.

Benjamin Spock was born in Manchester, Connecticut, and attended Bryn Mawr College.

Benjamin Spock was active in Americans for Democratic Action, the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy.

For most of his life, Benjamin Spock wore Brooks Brothers suits and shirts with detachable collars, but at 75, for the first time in his life, Mary got him to try blue jeans.

Benjamin Spock joined him in meditation twice a day and introduced him to Transactional analysis therapists, massage, yoga and a macrobiotic diet which reportedly improved his health.

Benjamin Spock adapted to her lifestyle, as she did to his.

Benjamin Spock continues to publish the book with co-author Robert Needlman.

For many years, Benjamin Spock lived aboard his sailboat, the Carapace, in the British Virgin Islands off Tortola.

At 84, Benjamin Spock won third place in a rowing contest, crossing four miles of the Sir Francis Drake Channel between Tortola and Norman Island in 2.5 hours.

Benjamin Spock credited his strength and good health to his lifestyle and his love for life.

Benjamin Spock had a second sailboat, named Turtle, in Maine on which he lived and sailed in the summer.

In 1992, Spock received the Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Award at the John F Kennedy Presidential Library for his lifelong commitment to disarmament and peaceable child-rearing.

Benjamin Spock died at a house he was renting in La Jolla, California, on March 15,1998.

Benjamin Spock's ashes were buried in Rockport, Maine, where he spent his summers.

In 1946, Benjamin Spock published The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care, which became a best-seller.

Benjamin Spock advocated ideas about parenting that were considered out of the mainstream.

In contrast, Benjamin Spock encouraged parents to show affection for their children and to see them as individuals.

Benjamin Spock himself had switched to an all-plant diet in 1991 after a series of illnesses that left him weak and unable to walk unaided.

However, Benjamin Spock's recommendations were criticized as being irresponsible towards children's health and children's ability to sustain normal growth, which has been aided with minerals such as calcium, riboflavin, vitamin D, iron, zinc and at times protein.

In 1962, Benjamin Spock joined The Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy, otherwise known as SANE.

Benjamin Spock was politically outspoken and active in the movement to end the Vietnam War.

In 1967, Benjamin Spock was pressed to run as Martin Luther King Jr.

In 1968, Benjamin Spock signed the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War, and he later became a sponsor of the War Tax Resistance project, which practiced and advocated tax resistance as a form of anti-war protest.

Benjamin Spock was arrested for his involvement in anti-war protests resulting from his signing of the anti-war manifesto "A Call to Resist Illegitimate Authority" circulated by members of the radical intellectual collective RESIST.

On 15 October 1969, Benjamin Spock was a featured speaker at the Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam march.

In 1970, Dr Benjamin Spock was active in The New Party serving as Honorary co-chairman with Gore Vidal.

Benjamin Spock was the People's Party and the Peace and Freedom Party nominee in 1976 for vice president as the running mate of Margaret Wright.

Benjamin Spock regarded these claims as ad hominem attacks, whose political motivation and nature were clear.

Benjamin Spock addressed these accusations in the first chapter of his 1994 book, Rebuilding American Family Values: A Better World for Our Children.

In June 1992, Benjamin Spock told Associated Press journalist David Beard there was a link between pediatrics and political activism:.

Conservatives criticized Benjamin Spock for being interested in the ideas of Sigmund Freud and John Dewey and his efforts to integrate their philosophies into the general population.

Benjamin Spock was part of the all-Yale Men's eight rowing team at the 1924 Summer Olympics, captained by James Rockefeller.